Customer Case Study
POWER SOUTH
PITSS America
“Oracle ADF Mobile allowed us to rapidly build the Power South mobile
application. With out-of-the-box functionality provided by Oracle ADF Mobile we
easily integrated with native device functionality including GPS and camera.” –
Martin Disterheft, PITSS President
Executive Summary
Troy, MI
http://pitss.com/us
Industry: Software and Services
Power South Energy Cooperative
Andalusia, AL
http://www.powersouth.com
Industry: Utilities
Products & Services:

Oracle ADF Mobile

Oracle JDeveloper /
Oracle ADF

Oracle WebLogic Server

Oracle HTTP Server

Oracle DB

SOAP Web Services
Project Scale:

6 Developers

8 weeks to develop
Power South Energy Cooperative, headquartered in Andalusia, Ala., is an
electricity generation and transmission (G&T) cooperative. Power South’s field
inspectors needed a way to take photographs, collect GPS coordinates, and fill
out reports in the field without a laptop. This project was an Oracle Forms
modernization effort that would provide support for offline work and data
synchronization. Power South chose Oracle ADF Mobile as the development
platform for the project because it offered simplified mobile development and
easy integration with native device features providing field inspectors with all the
functionality required on a mobile tablet. Not only does the application collect rich
coordinate and photographic data, it ensures high data quality through an
excellent user interface built with an iterative design approach. Power South’s
inspectors now do their work faster and with higher data integrity, leading to
more reliable reporting and business intelligence. Power South’s internal team is
better prepared to support tablet (iOS) technology going forward.
“Leveraging Oracle ADF Mobile, we were able to transition our
employees to use new mobile devices (iOS) leveraging the
latest device capabilities and allowing for offline work.” –
Kenneth Jones, Power South Business Applications
Supervisor
Organization
The intended users of the Power South mobile application are inspectors internal
to Power South. These inspectors needed the ability to replace the existing
paper report and Oracle Forms Application with native device functionality
running on an iPad. The ability to collect meter reading data on equipment, take
pictures of the equipment, collect GPS coordinates for the location of the
equipment and refer to the prior inspection report for each piece of equipment
were essential to the solution.
The Business Drivers
Power South had prior experience with mobile devices for data gathering in the
field. Their team had previously assembled some impressive Forms-based
solutions accessed via handheld Windows laptop computers. However, these
machines were an order of magnitude more expensive than iPads and did not
provide camera or GPS capabilities. Learning about Oracle ADF Mobile spurred
Power South to consider a new iPad-based solution to bring all these needs into
one device.
Solution
Credits:
Ross Smith, PITSS America
Martin Disterheft, PITSS America
Oracle Product Management
Power South asked PITSS to propose a new solution with Oracle ADF Mobile,
emphasizing that the application required an intuitive, easy to use interface. In
addition to the camera and GPS location capabilities, the application had to be
easy to use and intuitive for a variety of users. The iPads would need to operate
in full daylight, so a high contrast, visually clear layout would be important.
Lastly, the application needed to work offline, so it would be necessary to store
locally all relevant tables from the server when working in a disconnected mode.
PITSS began by reviewing the existing Forms application and proposing a new
Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Published February 2014
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/of its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
1
Customer Case Study
set of application design wireframes for review. After discussions and review the
application wireframes were finalized. (See “Interface Design and Application
Views” below for more detail.) The wireframes were used to guide the initial
development and once an initial version of the interface was developed, a series
of iterative build-and-review steps began. This iterative process would continue
until the mobile application was complete.
The following image is the inspection editor screen from the new Oracle ADF
Mobile application. The organization of equipment, questions, and answers is
easier to see at a glance. The color contrast is stronger and several new
features are present. Equipment is grouped by type; questions where problems
were found are highlighted with a black-and-yellow stripe icon; and hierarchical
questions are displayed inline as the user answers them.
“The mobile application interface is so intuitive that our users
don’t need any training. Thanks go to Oracle ADF Mobile’s
great components, which let us quickly turn our design plans
into reality.” – Ross Smith, PITSS Lead Architect
Inspection editor screen from the Oracle ADF Mobile application.
Hardware / Software Architecture
The mobile user interface is an Oracle ADF Mobile application running on an
iPad communicating over VPN-secured wireless internet to an Oracle WebLogic
server configured for Oracle ADF. The iPads use a VPN client application
available from the Apple App Store, configured to connect to Power South’s
network.
The application had to function when inspectors worked at remote sites without
data coverage so an “offline sync” process was required. All the relevant
inspection records, equipment tables, photographs, and meter readings had to
be stored on the iPad and refreshed and synchronized when a VPN-secured
internet connection became available.
This offline mode was accomplished with the following components:

Web Service: The ADF application on the WebLogic server exposed a
Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Published February 2014
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/of its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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Customer Case Study



SOAP-based web service to view objects on each relevant entity.
Sync User Interface: When online, the iPad user begins a one-button
“Sync” operation to upload all completed inspections to the web service and
then download the latest records. This keeps the iPad up to date with
server state.
Java customization code: In the Java code, the application leverages the
AdfmfJavaUtilities class to programmatically access the web service for this
upload/download process. The customization code includes model and
collection classes for the record types in the web service. This allows the
data to be provided through Java Bean-backed DataControls in the AMX
page views.
SQLite Encrypted Database: The Java customization classes interact with
a local SQLite encrypted database for persistence. SQLite was deemed the
ideal long-term storage method because of its table-based approach and
the ability to query data with SQL, mirroring the structure of data in the
server and reporting environment where the data originates.
Architecture
Key Software Design Considerations
Configuration driven interface: PITSS developed an innovative approach that
allowed them to dynamically show information on a page, based on dynamic
requirements. This is used in both list components as well as outside of lists.
This provides control over which AMX page elements are shown and when.
Managing photographs: Generically using large images in mobile applications
can be costly and influence performance and storage aspects of mobile
applications. Images captured as files use up device storage and images
captured as Base64 strings are very processor-intensive to show on screen.
To avoid this problem PITSS leveraged the support for using Java in Oracle ADF
Mobile and created a Java component to handle Base64 encoding and
decoding. A PhotoUtil class handles the logic of capturing photographs with the
normal ADF Mobile APIs, writing the files to disk, and updating the relevant data
models. The same class is used when synchronizing with the server. It is used
to encode image files as Base64 Strings for upload and to decode Base64
Strings from the server to write as local files. With this process, the mobile
application is never showing Base64 images or dealing with the upload and
download of file attachments.
Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Published February 2014
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/of its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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Customer Case Study
Interface Design and Application Views
The following images show the former Oracle Forms application along with some
wireframes of the user interface and the final screens they became.
This image is the inspection editor screen from the old Oracle Forms-based
application. From top to bottom, users will: select a power sub-station location;
select a piece of equipment to inspect; answer the question prompts about that
equipment. Some questions are multi-level, requiring further answers in the
Level 2 and Level 3 tabs.
The login screen for the new Oracle ADF Mobile application. Offline sync allows
users to login without being online.
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Published February 2014
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/of its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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Customer Case Study
The wireframe of the location selection page.
Oracle ADF Mobile location selection page. Here users select which location and
inspection they want to view or edit.
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Published February 2014
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/of its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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Customer Case Study
The wireframe of the inspection page.
Oracle ADF Mobile inspection page: Once an open inspection is selected,
inspectors progress through each piece of equipment, answering all relevant
questions.
Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Published February 2014
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Customer Case Study
After the inspector is satisfied the inspector marks the inspection complete. A
review form appears alerting them to any incomplete items.
When the user is connected to VPN they go to the Sync screen and choose
“Fast Sync” to update quickly, uploading all completed inspections and
downloading only the most recently changed data. They may also choose “Total
Sync” to dump and reload every remote table relevant to the application.
Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Published February 2014
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/of its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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Customer Case Study
About Power South
Power South Energy Cooperative, headquartered in Andalusia, Ala., is a
generation and transmission (G&T) cooperative providing the wholesale power
needs of 20 distribution members — 16 electric cooperatives and four municipal
electric systems — in Alabama and northwest Florida.
About PITSS America
With more than 400 customers across all industry sectors and geographies,
PITSS has gained an excellent worldwide reputation and is considered an expert
in modernizing and/or developing Oracle Forms or Oracle ADF based
applications.
Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Published February 2014
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/of its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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